The Washington State Essentials for Childhood (EfC) vision is that all children in Washington State thrive in safe, stable and nurturing relationships and environments.
Essentials for Childhood is part of a comprehensive child abuse and neglect prevention effort focused on early childhood supported by the public and private funding sources, including the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). This work convenes early learning subject matter experts, parents, caregivers, researchers, family healthcare and human service providers together with local communities and state partners in collective impact. The goal is to align systems, strategies, and policies to improve how families experience supports, reduce family stress, and increase family resilience.
Our broad and diverse cross-sector partnerships are continually growing.
Strategies to Achieve Our Vision
- We will continue to bring a strong, intentional equity and racial justice lens to Essentials. A child's race, ethnicity, family income, or neighborhood should not predict their future success and well-being.
- We will elevate and empower communities through a collective impact approach, focusing particularly on those furthest from opportunity, to contribute to statewide policy, systems, and programs and address their specific challenges.
- We will continue to build a statewide network of people working to build resilient communities, address and prevent adverse childhood experiences, adverse community environments, and other forms of trauma, and to create communities where all children thrive in safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments.
- We will continue to build a statewide Help Me Grow system. The system will ensure families can connect to the services and resources they need when, where, and how they need them. Systems will align and enable family-centered and culturally relevant services and build protective factors to mitigate the impact of trauma and adverse childhood experiences and contribute to dismantling historical, structural racism.
Contact Us
If you have questions or would like more information, please contact Essentials for Childhood Coordinator or 360-236-3503.